Month: November 2013

On Reliable Sources on CNN on Sunday, Eric Deggans hosted Alyssa Rosenberg and Viviana Hurtado to discuss a headline in USA Today which characterized the movie The Best Man Holiday as “race-themed”. The problem in describing The Best Man Holiday as race-themed is that the only way the movie is so themed is because it has a predominantly black cast. As Rosenberg pointed out on the show (and also on her blog) no one described Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine (or any Woody Allen move, for that matter) as race-themed even though his movies typically feature a mostly white cast.

Full credit to Masters of Sex for using something that was introduced in an earlier episode as an important feature in this episode, in this case the performance review. Given the sometimes clunky plotting, I would have expected the performance review to be a factor in the last episode or be forgotten completely. Instead, performance review was the key concept in this episode. It makes me wonder why it wasn’t the name of the episode.

One of the things you can depend on with Masters of Sex is that the episode theme will be clearly spelled out in either the episode title or in an early scene. In “Love and Marriage” the episode opens with Virginia telling Jane what she needs to do to get a positive performance review from Bill. Their conversation ends with Jane telling about a friend who lost her job once the wife of her boss found out about their affair. Women can only make it as far as men allow. Talk among yourselves.

Unlike previous seasons, season four of Boardwalk Empire was less about Nucky and more about the people around him. Nucky went through an existential crisis in which he felt like he didn’t have any interest in continuing to be a gangster but was at a loss for an alternative. At the start of the season finale, “Farewell Daddy Blues”, Nucky is packing up and getting ready to move to Tampa. Maybe Sally will have answers. He’ll be on his way as soon as he settles some things.

Nothing personal. That’s what the episode title means in Gaelic. No doubt it was meant to be ironic. Just because taking out Clay and Galen was also good business doesn’t meant that it wasn’t personal, intensely personal for various members of the club, especially Jax. It was a long time in coming, probably too long as Tara said, but it had to be done. If Jax is ever going to move the club out of guns, then Clay and Galen had to go. Now Connor and Jax have to sell it to the kings.

That’s what Nucky said at the end of “Havre de Grace”. It is in contrast to what his brother Eli tells Agent Knox, that Nucky says he wants peace but really doesn’t. I’ve thought for much of this season that Nucky is going through the motions, not really needing or wanting to run his criminal organization. Am I right or is Eli? We’ll find out next week in the season finale.

My colleagues and I received the news this morning that our office is shutting down. My own assignment will run into next year and then will be followed by severance and a small payment to reward me for sticking it out to the end. Once I leave the office for the final time I will put a job behind me that I haven’t enjoyed, other than the paycheck. Now the dream of having a job that I enjoy is again rising from the ashes.

So it was all part of a plan to allow Carrie to infiltrate the people behind the money behind the attack. Of course it was. We weren’t watching Carrie lose her mind again for no reason. We were watching Carrie lose her mind again because she needed to be viewed as a loose cannon who would turn against the CIA and give aid and comfort, or at least aid, to the enemy.

So that’s what Brody has been up to since we last saw him, touring South America. Evidently things didn’t go well for Brody in Columbia as he was shot by people hoping to collect a bounty. Lucky for him, Carrie has friends in Venezuela, which means that Brody has friends in Venezuela. The only problem is that an unfinished building in Caracas appears to be the destination for Brody and it is barely better than a prison.

One of the things I was thinking of during the season premier was wreckage. There is the physical wreckage; the blast site outside of the CIA offices, and there is the emotional wreckage; Carrie off her meds, the Brody family trying to hold on, Saul with Mira back in the house. The site of the blast will one day be cleaned up and put in order. Will the same happen in the personal lives of these characters?